Category: Guitar

It’s a bit difficult to understand how, after more than four decades of playing guitar, Derek Bailey developed a debilitating case of carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s not like holding a pick was something new to him, but the condition (fortunately confined to his right hand) made it such that he was no longer able to hold a “plectrum.” This fact comes out in “Explanation & Thanks,” the introductory piece to the album entitled Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, an audio letter dictated/played by Derek to someone named “Carol.” [source]

Step Across the Border is a 1990 avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was written and directed by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel and released in Germany and Switzerland. The film was screened in cinemas in North America, South America, Europe and Japan, and on television in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France. It was also released on VHS by RecRec Music (Switzerland) in 1990, and was later released on DVD by Winter & Winter (Germany) in 2003. [source]

This recording, from 1987 is a hidden gem and treasured fragment, perhaps another Rosetta Stone that allows listeners to appreciate how the jazz and rock music worlds shattered into a million pieces in the 1960s, only to reconfigure into new and challenging ways. Sharrock first met Peter Brötzmann in 1969, as the saxophonist relates in the conversation interview book with Gerard Rouy We Thought We Could Change The World (Wolke, 2014). [source]